Remembering the Fallen

 

Deptford’s Fallen: Remembering Those Who Served in the First World War

The Brockley & Ladywell Memorial commemorates 165 men from Deptford lost in the Great War.

The Brockley & Ladywell War Memorial: A Lasting Tribute

On a quiet stretch of Brockley Grove, the Brockley & Ladywell War Memorial stands as a poignant and enduring reminder of Deptford’s sacrifice during the First World War. Carved into its screen walls and tablets are the names of 165 servicemen who lost their lives between 1914 and 1918 — sons, brothers, neighbours, and friends whose absence left an indelible mark on the community.

 
 
 

 
 
Deptford, a working-class district with strong ties to the docks and river, saw many of its young men enlist in the army, navy, and emerging service branches. The memorial’s panels record their names, acting both as a communal ledger of loss and a place for reflection. Although ages at death are not consistently recorded in publicly accessible sources, each name represents a life interrupted and a future left unrealised. The memorial serves to remind us that these men were individuals, not merely numbers.
The Brockley & Ladywell Memorial is more than a list of names. It provides a tangible link between past and present, connecting modern visitors to the families, streets, and workplaces of Deptford from a century ago. Through research into the names, insight can be gained into the lives, regiments, and service histories of local men, helping to preserve their stories for future generations. By visiting, photographing, and documenting these panels, we ensure that Deptford’s contribution to the First World War will always be remembered.
 
 

 

A short dedication.

We remember the men of Deptford not as statistics, but as neighbours, co-workers, and friends. Each name on the memorials connects us to a life lived, a family affected, and a community shaped by sacrifice. Let us pause, reflect, and ensure that their memory endures.

A Personal Pilgrimage to Tyne Cot Cemetery

Visiting Tyne Cot Cemetery is a humbling experience. Among thousands of headstones, each representing a life given in courage and sacrifice, I had a personal quest: to find a grave that shared my initials and surname.

AARON WHITE

I found it—a headstone with my initial and surname—and standing there, I felt an unexpected connection across time, a bond with a soldier I will never meet on this earth but whose bravery and presence resonates with me deeply.

In that moment, I wrote this poem:

I came to Tyne Cot to see the men,

who gave their lives so bravely then,

I walked to a place I knew was there,

among the gravestones that looked so bare,

except a headstone which shared my name,

initials and surname was the same,

I hope to meet you yet again,

brave soldier who shared my name.

God Bless You.

© 2025 Andrew White

Tyne Cot is a place of remembrance, reflection, and connection. That single headstone reminded me that history isn’t just in books—it lives in names, in stories, and in the hearts of those who remember.

 

HIstory of Mary Ann Buildings - Gardens

 

Not long after I first published my post about Mary Ann Buildings, I received a lovely message from a reader named Kevin, who kindly shared a personal connection to the place:

Hi Andy,

Following your post and pictures of Mary Ann's Buildings, I thought I would share a photo I found of my Mum — mid-50s, I think — standing in front of the gate shown in the second picture down on your post. You can see the sign above the gate in both pictures. Happy for the photo to be shared!

Best regards

Kevin

Kevins Mum.

Here is an indepth History of  Mary Ann Buildings. Theres a link below to the original post.

Mary Ann Buildings, Deptford: The Lost Street Behind St Paul’s

Nestled in the historic heart of Deptford, just behind St Paul’s Church and between Albury Street and Deptford High Street, lies a small cul-de-sac known today as Mary Ann Gardens. To the casual passer-by, this quiet residential corner may seem unremarkable, but its name preserves the memory of an earlier landscape — Mary Ann Buildings, a once-vibrant pocket of working-class housing that tells a story of London’s shifting urban fortunes.

A Georgian Neighbourhood Grows

The area around what became Mary Ann Gardens developed rapidly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Deptford — then a bustling riverside town — was home to dockyards, chandlers, shipwrights and labourers. Streets like Union Street (now Albury Street) and Queen Street (now Lamerton Street) were laid out as part of a growing suburb that served the nearby Royal Dockyard and the Thames shipping trade.

Within this grid of narrow streets appeared Mary Ann Buildings, a modest terrace of small workers’ cottages. Their name followed a common convention of the period, when new speculative developments were often given genteel or personal names to distinguish them — perhaps after a family member or the developer’s wife, “Mary Ann.”

Life in Mary Ann Buildings

By the mid-19th century, census records and social surveys depicted Mary Ann Buildings as densely populated but industrious. Small trades flourished here — costermongers, labourers, and dock workers shared the cramped houses. According to social historians, the area was “well known for housing slaughterhouse girls,” referring to the women employed in the local meat trades that surrounded the market and High Street.

Like much of Deptford, the street reflected both the hardship and vitality of working-class London. Children played in courtyards while residents fetched water from shared pumps. St Paul’s Church — a short walk away — offered a spiritual centre amidst the noise of the High Street and the docks.

Decline and Clearance

By the early 20th century, conditions in parts of Deptford had deteriorated. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and industrial decline left many of the older houses in disrepair. Urban reformers and local councils began to clear entire streets to make way for new housing schemes.

The Deptford High Street and St Paul’s Conservation Area Appraisal notes that Mary Ann Buildings, along with the southern terrace of nearby Albury Street, was cleared in the 20th century. The replacement was a low-rise post-war development, consistent with the planning ideals of the 1950s and 1960s, which sought open space, greenery, and light in contrast to the dense terraces they replaced.

Mary Ann Gardens Today

Today’s Mary Ann Gardens occupies roughly the same footprint as the former Buildings. The cul-de-sac comprises modest, mixed-tenure housing — low-rise flats and houses surrounded by mature trees. From the street, one can still sense the layered history of the area: Albury Street’s ornate Georgian doorcases stand a few steps away, and the spire of St Paul’s Church dominates the skyline, linking past and present.

Modern property data suggests that most of the current housing dates from around 1970, though the site retains fragments of earlier boundary lines visible on historic Ordnance Survey maps. It is a quiet corner, but one deeply rooted in Deptford’s working-class heritage.

Remembering the Lost Streets

Mary Ann Buildings may no longer exist in name, but its memory endures in the maps, archives, and oral histories of Deptford. It represents a familiar London story — of industrial growth, social struggle, and urban renewal.

In the words of one local historian, “to walk through Mary Ann Gardens is to tread on the ghost lines of the city’s hidden lives.” The surviving name on the street sign stands as a small but enduring tribute to the people who once made their homes in the shadow of the docks, shaping a neighbourhood that still bears their mark.

References & Further Reading

• Lewisham Council. Deptford High Street and St Paul’s Church Conservation Area Appraisal (2021).

• The City Within the City — Urban History dissertation, University of Central Lancashire (2019).

• Layers of London historic maps (Rocque, Greenwood, OS 1870 editions).

• Streetlist.co.uk — “Mary Ann Gardens SE8: Street and Property Data.”

• Old Deptford History blog (archival posts and photographic comparisons).

About the Author

By Andy
Andy is a historian and writer with a focus on South East London’s urban and social history. Their research explores the transformation of neighbourhoods like Deptford, Greenwich, and Bermondsey — tracing how working-class communities, architecture, and industry shaped London’s modern identity.

https://www.olddeptfordhistory.com/2014/05/mary-ann-buildings-circa-1960s.html

Lost Burial Ground

 

The Lost Burial Ground of Hughes Fields, Deptford

By olddeptfordhistory.com

Deptford has always been a place where London’s past meets the present. Dockyards, merchants, sailors, revolutionaries — their stories lie in the streets and buildings around us. But there’s one story almost invisible today: the burial ground that once lay beneath or beside Hughes Fields.

This is the tale of a field, a forgotten graveyard, and a changing city.

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📍 A Field with a Name and a Past

Hughes Fields (sometimes written “Hughs Field”) lay on the western edge of old Deptford, between Watergate Street, Benbow Street, and Evelyn Street. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this was open land — fields on the fringe of a growing riverside village. By the end of the 19th century, it became the Hughes Fields Estate, built to house working-class Londoners.

Long before that transformation, the land had another identity:
locals referred to a burial ground within or adjacent to Hughes Fields — a piece of parish ground that quietly disappeared from maps as development advanced.

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🗺️ A Glimpse on the Old Maps

Stanford’s Library Map of London, 1862.

The Stanford 1862 map shows the Hughes Fields area as open ground directly bordering the parish burial zones of St Nicholas and St Paul’s Church. While the burial strip itself isn’t labelled (typical for overflow plots), its location within parish boundary lines and its proximity to the crowded churchyards suggests the land was used for burials before redevelopment.

Ordnance Survey, 1890s. By the late Victorian period, this part of Deptford had changed dramatically. New housing covered the field, and the burial ground strip referred to in local accounts was no longer marked. This was common: small burial extensions were often absorbed into building plots, unrecorded except in parish registers or local memory.

Hughes Field 1895

⛪ St Nicholas & St Paul’s: The Overflowing Churchyards

Deptford’s population grew rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its two main Anglican parishes — St Nicholas (medieval) and St Paul’s (Georgian) — had busy churchyards that soon filled.

When burial space ran short, the parish acquired new land:

• St Paul’s expanded into what became Deptford Cemetery (now known as Brockley Cemetery) in 1858.

• Before that, smaller strips of ground were used for extra burials, likely including the Hughes Fields plot.

Nonconformist chapels in Deptford High Street also maintained small burial yards, adding to the patchwork of sacred ground in the area.

1850

⚰️ The “Strip of Burial Ground”

Local oral history and older written guides refer to “a strip of burial ground parallel to the new streets through Hughes Field.”

This suggests:

• It was probably an overflow plot associated with the parish church.

• It may also have included pauper graves or burials of those without family plots — common in Victorian London.

• The site was likely unfenced or minimally marked, unlike larger cemeteries.

When the Hughes Fields Estate was developed in the late 19th century, the burial strip was absorbed into the urban fabric. Many such plots across London were either cleared or simply built over, leaving no headstones and little trace above ground.

Additional ground, Wellington Street

This was consecrated and a wall built in 1765 (there is a commemorative tablet in the wall of Charlotte Turner gardens which incorporates the old ground). The ground was extended to the N in 1897 and widened to the West in the 20th c It is now a level park, north of MacMillan St.

¾ acre. This ground, belonging to the parish of St. Nicholas, was laid out in 1884 by the Kyrle Society, and is very well kept up by the Greenwich District Board of Works, who have lately acquired a piece of adjoining land to be added to the recreation ground. (Holmes)

🏡 What Lies Beneath

Today, Hughes Fields Estate is a residential area. The quiet lawns and walkways give no hint of what once lay here. But archaeological sensitivity remains:

• St Nicholas and St Paul’s churchyards are protected heritage sites.

• The wider area is listed by Lewisham Council as having archaeological potential.

• Any major groundworks would require watching briefs, in case human remains or burial structures are encountered.

For many, this is a poignant reminder: Deptford’s layers run deep. Beneath our feet are centuries of lives lived, and lives remembered.

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🕯️ Remembering the Unmarked Dead

The burial ground of Hughes Fields may be unmarked, but its story is part of Deptford’s fabric:

• It reflects a time of rapid urban growth, public health pressures, and parish expansion.

• It speaks to the lives of ordinary people — sailors, dockers, and families — whose graves may no longer be visible.

• It reminds us how urban development can bury not only ground, but memory.

As local historians, our task is to keep that memory alive.

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🧭 Visiting the Area Today

• Hughes Fields Estate lies between Benbow Street, Evelyn Street, and Watergate Street.

• St Nicholas Church and St Paul’s Church are a short walk away and open to visitors at certain times.

• Brockley Cemetery (originally Deptford Cemetery) offers an evocative sense of the scale of Victorian burial grounds.

When you walk these streets, remember: the ground beneath you once held a burial ground — a quiet resting place on the edge of a growing town.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

• Stanford’s Library Map of London (1862)

• Ordnance Survey Maps (late 19th century)

• Mrs Basil Holmes, The London Burial Grounds (1896)

• London Picture Archive & Layers of London

• Lewisham Council: Archaeological Priority Area reports

• OldDeptfordHistory blog and local oral accounts

The KIngs Arms Deptford. Another Ghost Story

 

 The Kings Arms, Deptford

A Ghost in the Dumb Waiter?

Deptford has never been short on strange tales. Its streets are layered with the footsteps of sailors, merchants, rebels, and rogues. But one story has persisted quietly through the years — the ghost said to haunt the Kings Arms, a centuries-old pub tucked along Church Street.

The Kings Arms was already listed in 19th-century trade directories, serving dock workers, shipwrights, and market folk near the bustling Thames. By all accounts, it was a classic local — a solid bit of Victorian brickwork, all dark wood, tiled floors, and low amber lighting in the evenings.
Pubs like this often gather stories as easily as they gather regulars, and the Kings Arms is no exception.
According to local lore, the ghost that haunts the Kings Arms is none other than a former landlord, a man who ran the place with a firm hand and a watchful eye. Nobody remembers precisely when he lived — and no official record has tied a name to the legend — but the story goes like this:
When a new landlord took over, the old spirit was not pleased.
Staff began noticing odd happenings. A pint left on the bar might suddenly tip over — or, more eerily, slide as if nudged by invisible hands. The dumb waiter, unused for years, would rattle or groan in the still of night. And then there was the bell.
It’s said the pub’s old service bell — long disconnected from anything practical — would sometimes ring on its own. Quiet evenings would be punctuated by that sharp, metallic chime, echoing down the hallway like a call from another time.
One of the best-known anecdotes repeats itself in pub folklore columns: one night, a glass slid clear off the counter and shattered on the floor. A barmaid swore no one had touched it. Another witness — a regular — claimed to have seen it “flicked” into the air.

Of course, skeptics have their theories:

• Uneven surfaces.
• Vibrations from traffic or the trains.
• Old fittings that creak and clang in drafts.
But others say it’s the ghostly landlord, making his opinion known.
The tale has found its way into several modern “haunted pub” lists and Halloween roundups. It’s simple, memorable, and rooted in real geography — the Kings Arms, Church Street, Deptford. That makes it the kind of local ghost story that clings to a neighbourhood for generations.
What makes it more mysterious is the lack of a clear record: no name for the landlord, no precise date for the events. Just whispers, a rattling dumb waiter, and a bell that shouldn’t ring anymore.
Many haunted pub stories are born from creaky buildings, tall tales told over a pint, and the delicious thrill of a good scare. The Kings Arms haunting seems to fit squarely in this tradition — half history, half legend.
But walk past the pub on a damp autumn night, when the air off the Thames is thick and the streets echo with your own footsteps, and it’s not hard to imagine that sharp ding of the bell cutting through the quiet.
Maybe it’s just old pipes and tired wood.
Or maybe, just maybe, the old landlord still wants to make sure things are being done properly behind the bar.

✍️ Sources: local folklore listings, Deptford pub directories (19th c.), Halloween feature, oral retellings. No primary documentation has been verified to date.

The Kings Arms, Church Street, Deptford, London.

Help for Andy: Trying to find the location and information of the Three Mariners in Lower Deptford

 

Three Mariners is an old sign, of which there are examples among the trades tokens, and which is still to be seen on two or three public-houses in London. There was formerly a tavern known by this sign in Vauxhall.

🌍 Help Find the Lost Location of “The Three Mariners” in Deptford

For years, I’ve been trying to track down the original site of a lost riverside tavern — The Three Mariners — mentioned in a famous 1673 Deptford ghost story. The haunting was said to have taken place “at the Three Mariners in Lower Deptford, by the King’s Yard” at the house of Nicholas Broadway. It’s one of the earliest printed ghost stories linked to the area, but the pub itself seems to have vanished without a trace.

Deptford’s riverside has changed dramatically since the 17th century, and many old inns have disappeared or been renamed. Finding the location of The Three Mariners would help preserve an important part of the area’s maritime and social history.

🕵️ Can you help?
If you’ve come across old maps, directories, parish records, or local photos that mention The Three Mariners, please get in touch. Any lead, no matter how small, could help solve this historical mystery.

👉 Read the original ghost story here: OldDeptfordHistory.com — The Ghost of the Three Mariners (1673)